Air passenger bridges are sufficiently known from the prior art. Air passenger bridges serve for the transfer of persons from the aircraft directly to the airport terminal. Since the airport terminal is frequently higher than the door opening of the aircraft the air passenger bridges, which are held at the front end by an undercarriage, frequently extend at an inclination downwardly in direction towards the door opening of the aircraft. At the lower end of the air passenger bridge the air passenger bridge has a cabin pivotable through up to 90° relative to the longitudinal axis of the air passenger bridge, wherein a coupling module for transition from the cabin to the aircraft is arranged at the front end. It has already been indicated that the air passenger bridge extends so as to run downwardly at an angle from the building to the aircraft. The consequence thereof is that the coupling module, which has a floor spanned over in U-shaped manner by an extensible canopy roof, arranged at the cabin bears by its bumper arranged at the end face of the canopy roof against the outer skin of the aircraft at an inclination to the aircraft.
Equally known are coupling modules with a canopy roof and a floor in which the floor is mounted in the coupling module to be movable about the centre longitudinal axis. The solution of a pivotably movable floor in the coupling module is costly. If the floor were not pivotably movable, then this would be disadvantageous from the following aspects:
In most aircraft the doors open outwardly. If the floor of the coupling module runs at an inclination to the floor of the aircraft, then this means that with respect to the opening of the door, the coupling module has to be placed lower so as to ensure that the door during opening does not collide with the floor of the coupling module. The consequence thereof is that the inclination of the air passenger bridge is further increased overall. This requires, for example, an increased expenditure of force for the pushing of wheelchairs. Moreover, it is disadvantageous that due to the fact that the coupling module has to be placed lower so as to ensure opening of the aircraft door a relatively high step between aircraft on the one hand and floor of the coupling module on the other hand arises. This would promote a risk of tripping of passengers when disembarking from or boarding the aircraft. The tendency to trip would be further increased due to the fact that the passengers step from the horizontal aircraft floor onto the inclined floor of the coupling module.
A number of aircraft have a rain gutter above the door entrance. Due to the inclined air passenger bridge and, correspondingly therewith, due to the inclined position of the coupling module it happens on contact of the bellows with the frontally arranged bumper that the bumper in plan view of the aircraft door bears on the righthand side against the rain gutter and on the lefthand side at the top protrudes above the contour of the aircraft. This is particularly the case with small aircraft having a contour which in the region of the front door drops away directly after the door towards the cockpit. The consequence thereof is that the bumper on the righthand side relatively quickly closes the door opening at which it rests on the rain gutter and on the lefthand side forms an opening through which rain, snow, etc., can enter.